Close-up of a black script lettering tattoo reading Courage on the forearm of a woman in a pink tulle dress.

Courage script tattoo on a forearm

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows a black ink tattoo of the word Courage in flowing script, running vertically along the inner forearm. The lines are bold and smooth with a little shading in the letter strokes. The subject wears a pale pink tulle dress, and the soft pink tones contrast with the dark ink and the blurred dark background.

Lettering Forearm Courage Word Script

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Hettie Pask had sewn eleven petticoats for the Lifeboat Day dancers and never once been asked to sew a word. Then Mrs Oddie came into the shop with a bolt of pale pink tulle under one arm and a folded paper in her hand, and asked for COURAGE to be worked down the sleeve in black silk, in a script like the lettering on a chapel bell.

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Hettie said no. Net puckers under a thread that heavy, and the ruffles would sag. But Mrs Oddie had lost her husband to the cliff path in February, and she said she wanted the word where she would see it reaching for the kettle and the tin of tea, which was the only place she ever seemed to stop. So Hettie unpicked the first try, pinned the paper to the cutting table, and worked the letters in backstitch while the tide came in under the pier and the gulls argued over the bins.

She made the C too wide the first time and had to start the whole curl again. The lower loop of the R wanted a second pass. By the last week of March her fingers were pricked raw and the shop smelled of cold tea and starch. On the final evening she held the sleeve up to the window and saw that the word ran a little uphill, the way a person walks when they have decided to keep going regardless.

She did not fix it. She tied off the thread, snipped it close, and hung the dress on the rail by the door, where it caught the last of the light and the black letters stood out sharp against the pink, all of them facing outward.